Message from the Head of ELE
This is an age of change and transformation. Department of English Language Education (ELE) has been continuously building up its strength in teaching, research and community service and actively engaging itself in the technological and cultural processes associated with the new era. ELE colleagues have acquired research and teaching expertise in various areas, including English as the language teacher education, language-in-education policy, medium of instruction (EMI) and content-language integrated learning (CLIL), e-learning, and second language acquisition (SLA). We aspire to nurture graduates with a global outlook and multicultural awareness. Our research outputs have appeared in the most respected international academic journals, such as Applied Linguistics and TESOL Quarterly. Our multi-disciplinary research on language teaching and learning, as well as our language studies in schools and other social contexts set a solid foundation for classroom teaching in our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
ELE members actively play a service role in the wider community. Colleagues contribute to the local educational community by carrying out numerous workshops and other school-based activities. Subsequent to the inaugural conference on Language Teaching and Learning: Cognition and Identity, on 28-29 June 2019, we held the 2nd International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning: Language-in-education Policy and Practice in the Digital Era, on 19-20 June 2021, establishing an academic exchange platform for global presenters and audience. The 1st and 2nd Knowledge Transfer Forum, collaborating with TEFLIN of Indonesia, had over 1000 participants each year via ZOOM and Youtube Livestream and proved to be a fruitful platform for facilitating local and international English teachers’ professional development; we aim to run the Forum as an annual event. We have also redesigned and delivered the Public Lecture Series to be of general interest to a larger audience and to strengthen the university-school-family connection.
Looking forward, ELE will continuously endeavour to provide high-quality teaching for both pre- and in-service English teachers. With the efforts from all ELE colleagues and support from the Faculty and the University, ELE is on its way to becoming a regionally leading player in research on EMI/CLIL, e-learning and SLA, and the multiple driving forces that construct language-in-education policies and practices.
Dr Michelle Gu
Head, Department of English Language Education